‘Immediately getting called out by the pope’: JD Vance is openly criticized by the pope over mass deportation initiative
Vice President JD Vance’s disingenuous theological defense of mass deportations hit a Catholic roadblock roughly the size of a certain Vicar of Christ, named Pope Francis, who issued an extraordinary direct rebuke, exposing deep rifts between the Trump administration’s policies and Catholic teachings they claim to uphold.
“Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups,” Pope Francis wrote in his letter to U.S. bishops, directly contradicting Vance’s recent Fox News assertion that “you love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country. And then after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.”
The Pope emphasized that deportations of people who flee “extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment” actively “damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness.”
Vance, a recent Catholic convert, has increasingly positioned himself as a bizarro interpreter of Christian doctrine by invoking “ordo amoris,” a theological concept of ordered love, to justify prioritizing citizens over immigrants. Critics say this misrepresents fundamental Christian teachings. “What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly,” Francis warned.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan piled on, calling Vance’s accusations about bishops profiting from refugee resettlement “scurrilous” and “nasty.” “You want to come look at our audits, which are scrupulously done?” Dolan challenged. “You think we make money caring for the immigrants? We’re losing it hand over fist… We’re not in a moneymaking business.”
The administration’s attempt to wrap harsh xenophobic and anti-Black policies in religious doctrine while championing church-state separation carries historical ironies. The phrase “separation of church and state” gained prominence through advocacy by nativist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s, who opposed Catholic influence on government—making Vance’s theological appeals particularly striking.
The Pope urged Catholics to “not give in to narratives that discriminate and cause needless suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters.” He directly challenged Vance’s interpretation of Christian love, stating the “true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan,’ that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.”
“The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality,” Francis wrote, calling the administration’s deportation program “a major crisis.”
Vance now faces the uncomfortable position of having his theological interpretations publicly corrected by the head of his own church. Critics say his selective reading of Catholic teaching reflects a cynical approach—using religion as moral cover for controversial policies while ignoring clear religious mandates about human dignity and care for the vulnerable.
As the administration continues its mass deportation initiative despite these rebukes from religious leaders, the gap between their warped religious rhetoric and the actual teachings—like you know, the print in red—they claim to follow only widens. The Pope’s intervention suggests Vance’s interpretation of “ordo amoris” fundamentally misunderstands or misrepresents core Christian principles about universal human dignity—and raises questions about whether his theological arguments reflect genuine religious conviction or political expedience.
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